Multicultural Britain tells itself stories in order to live. One such story is that the island has always been a diverse, cosmopolitan place. On social media, graduate degree holders will eagerly tell you that Britain’s patron saint is Turkish, its alphabet Roman, its religion Middle Eastern, and its royal family German. A more sophisticated version can be found in a recent issue of The New Statesman, where Tanjil Rashid writes, “The multiculturalism of today’s England arose out of a history genuinely rooted and centuries old. From its inception, Britishness was a composite identity, formed in the aftermath of the union of England and Scotland, capable of absorbing both nations, alongside the Welsh, the Irish and the myriad nationalities that would be absorbed (and invented) by the British empire.”
This story has wormed its way into all levels of British cultural output. Blitz, Steve McQueen’s 2024 film about the Luftwaffe bombing of London, featured an improbably mixed-race protagonist. Other examples would make a Soviet propagandist wince. In 2022, a black man dressed as a Roman centurion sang, “We’ve been here from the start” for a BBC children’s program called, appropriately enough, Horrible Histories.
What happens when the new story of Britain collides with an older one? Until recently, the Norman conquest of England was one of the most famous historical episodes in Anglo-American culture. A climactic scene from Errol Flynn’s 1938 film version of Robin Hood starts with Robin telling Prince John, the villainous Norman usurper, that “[he’ll] never rest until every Saxon in this shire can stand up free men.” It should not surprise that a major Hollywood production from the 1930s could include lines about standing up to Norman oppression and expect its audience to know exactly what Robin Hood was talking about. “1066 and all that” was once common cultural knowledge, not obscure trivia. To celebrate the success of D-Day, The New Yorker reimagined the Bayeux Tapestry on its cover. Brits still point to the overrepresentation of French names in high-status professions as evidence of a rigid and enduring class system.
King and Conqueror, a new series about the Norman takeover, is the BBC’s attempt to reconcile this older story with the newer one. The uniformly white Norman aggressors are portrayed as proto-colonialists. The Anglo-Saxons, who have been given the multiracial treatment by the BBC’s casting directors, are squabbling natives whose weakness invites foreign interference. Not all of this is bad history. Given the Normans’ brutal treatment of the English and their subsequent expansion across the Mediterranean, there are undeniable parallels between 1066 and later spasms of European expansionism.
Still, the trouble with grafting modern assumptions onto distant historical eras is that the two usually mix like oil and water. Casting black actors as Anglo-Saxon nobles is only the most in-your-face example of this problem. When it comes to swords and tunics, King and Conqueror prefers gritty realism to the high camp style of Flynn’s Robin Hood, presumably because realistic details immerse the audience in the show’s historical setting. Shouldn’t the same logic apply to casting decisions?
King and Conqueror’s characters also suffer from an acute case of early 21st-century-itis. Just as Marxists fixate on economics, modern TV writers tend to obsess over interpersonal relationships and psychology. Harold Hardrada, fated to become the last Anglo-Saxon King of England, has serious family issues. Dad thinks he’s a hothead, and his brothers are always squabbling. But Harold gets on famously with Duke William, at least until the Norman warlord decides to assert his claim to the English throne. This sets the two former friends on a collision course that culminates in a mid-battle duel on the field of Hastings. Did any of this actually happen? The real story of 1066 is quite interesting on its own terms, but King and Conqueror insists on adding a heavy dose of interpersonal drama.
These tangled relationships are conveyed in wooden, declarative dialogue, delivered with a glare so you know everyone is deadly serious. The facial expressions match the show’s grim color palette. Medieval Europe, an era that gave us heraldry, court jesters, and troubadours, is rendered in dull, grayish brown hues. It’s enough to make one nostalgic for Flynn’s bright green tights and perfectly coiffed moustache.
William the Conqueror, the bastard son of a Norman duke who brutally subjugated Britain only to tearfully repent of his crimes on his deathbed, is a genuinely fascinating figure. Good historians and talented fiction writers can tease out human qualities from such personages while acknowledging their fundamental distance from our own time. Alas, King and Conqueror is unwilling to meet its characters on anything but 21st-century terms. Then again, maybe the show’s creators are right not to trust their audience. As Britain has changed, the stories it tells itself have changed with it. As of 2025, the most covered history topic in English secondary schools is the Transatlantic Slave Trade, just edging out World War I and, yes, the Norman Conquest. Eighty-three percent of English schools have “diversified” or “decolonized” curricula. Considering the show’s audience, the decision to turn the story of 1066 into a family melodrama-cum-colonial parable starts to make sense.
One advantage to having a canon is that it gives people a common set of references with which to make sense of the world. Viewed in this light, the old narrative of 1066 and its aftermath has much to recommend it. The story of a violent but ultimately fruitful encounter between Norman and Saxon worlds was coherent, accessible, and deeply relevant to the ideas and customs that still undergird much of British (and American) life.
The same cannot be said of its successor. The new story in King and Conqueror suffers from a fatal lack of coherence. To attract fans of blockbuster productions such as Game of Thrones, the show includes plenty of gory violence. To make itself comprehensible to historically illiterate viewers, the show reinterprets 1066 through modern ideas about imperialism and family dynamics. Yet there is still a whiff of old-fashioned British grandeur about the production, with its fluttering pennants, Norman kite shields, and mounted knights. The result is an awkward medley of ideas and references. Food for thought for anyone trying to make sense of British identity in the 21st century.
Will Collins is a lecturer at Eotvos Lorand University in Budapest, Hungary.
